Viscount Astor was so worried by his socialite cousin Brooke Astor’s fears of financial disaster that he contacted banking friends to find out what had happened to her vast fortune, a Manhattan court heard.

The Conservative peer - the first big name on a witness list that reads like a Who’s Who of the world’s rich and famous - said he was shocked when he visited Mrs Astor at London’s Connaught Hotel and she told him it had become too expensive for her.

Mrs Astor, who maintained three homes with three separate sets of staff and flew around America by private jet, considered the Connaught to be her British home on regular visits to her English friends and family and had never mentioned money worries before.

Tony Marshall arrives at State Supreme court with his wife Charlene, facing charges of grand larceny and conspiracy

Viscount Astor, the stepfather of Tory Party leader David Cameron’s wife Samantha, said his financial friends later told him there was nothing to worry about, that Mrs Astor’s fortune remained.

The 57-year-old peer, who wore a bespoke charcoal grey suit, told Manhattan Supreme Court that he’d known Mrs Astor since he was a child and called her 'cousin Brooke' even though they were only related by her marriage to multimillionaire Vincent Astor.

Socialite Brooke Astor died in August 2007

He admitted he was surprised when Mrs Astor asked him to escort her to her lavish 100th birthday party in 2002 , saying she did not want to go with her only son Anthony Marshall and his third wife Charlene.

She was having problems remembering names and faces, so Viscount Astor said he told her: 'Don’t worry, just go up to people and say, "Nice to see you, thank you for coming.’”

As she walked into her party she spotted her old friend David Rockefeller. But she ignored him and went up to his burly bodyguard to thank him for attending the bash.

Marshall, an 84-year-old former diplomat and Broadway theatre financier, is on trial alongside his lawyer Francis Morrissey accused of pillaging £40million from his mother, who was suffering from Altzheimer’s disease when she died aged 105 two years ago, and forcing her to alter her will.

The court heard earlier how Marshall had sold Mrs Astor’s favourite Childe Hassam painting for £6million - pocketing a million pounds in commission - after telling her she could no longer afford to buy dresses or shoes.

But Viscount Aster testified that Mrs Astor would never have willingly sold the impressionist’s picture of Fifth Avenue, explaining it was a family joke that her good friend the TV chat show doyenne Barbara Walters constantly asked to buy it and was constantly rebuffed.

Mrs Astor, a close friend of Prince Charles and responsible for smoothing Camilla Parker Bowles entrée into New York society 10 years ago, spent 50 years giving away £135 million of her late third husband’s money to charity.

Linda Gillies, director of the Vincent Astor Foundation, told the court that she was speechless when Mrs Astor confided that Marshall had told her she was broke.

She said Mrs Astor once told her Marshall would be angry when he discovered she had bought dresses and shoes.

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But on another occasion, after Marshall had spent £1million on a new Upper Eastside apartment, she rolled her eyes and told Mrs Gillies: 'Guess who paid for that?'

Mrs Gillies, 69, told the court that Mrs Astor started to suffer from memory loss when she was in her mid 90s and would often say 'I’ve never had a face lift' in the middle of meetings to cover up her forgetfulness.

On one occasion she failed to recognise civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson and clearly had no idea why he had come to see her.

'She began to tell the same stories to fill up space,' Mrs Gillies said.

Marshall faces 25 years in jail if convicted.

The trial is expected to last several weeks and wiltnesses include Miss Walters, fashion designer Oscar de la Renta’s wife Annette and political heavyweight Henry Kissinger.